beans, beans, and a potato…


In spite of the heat that’s bearing down on us and our plants, Mother Nature has a job to do, and do it she does. They might be thirsty and hot and sweaty, but my plants continue to bloom and amazingly, have enough energy left over to make seeds for the next generation to go on.

Pretty amazing, to me.

So, here are some of the lovely seed pods that have just popped up in my garden in the last week or so.

The first is the stunningly beautiful Pride of Barbados that is one of my very favorite plants.  It’s exotic and delicate and hot and colorful all at the same time.  It’s hearty and fern-like and it brings a smile to my face when it finally shows its true colors late in the summer.

These are my Hyacinth Bean Vines, with their leather-y purple pods that look good enough to eat!

My prolific Coral Trumpet Vine makes these huge seed pods, but then again, this specimen is pretty darn big and woody, and I think it would take over the cabana if I let it.
This, gardening friends, is a real bean!  A green bush bean in my veggie garden.  I liek to call the seed pods beans and take a little license with gardening lingo, since they do look like beans!
This Esperanza or Tecoma Stans, is full of slender, little green pods – hundreds of them – waiting to drop and start life all over again deep under the mulch this winter.

Ok, THIS is your laugh for the day.  I kept seeing this big, smooth pink orb poking out of the potato vine in my front pots.  Thought it was a river rock from the dry bed, wondered if I’d stuck it in there for some reason when I planted the vine.
Seriously.
I thought this for weeks!
Today, as I was removing dead plants and adding a few fresh ones, it hit me like a V-8 POP on the forehead!
It’s a POTATO!!!!!!!
Duh.
Double Duh!
Sigh….I am not only not in charge, I am clearly clueless!
I never saw an actual potato on a decorative potato vine that I’d planted before.
I mean, there are some plants that are named after things that they are not, right?
Well, at least I get points for posting it out there for you all to laugh WITH me about!